In China in Ten Words, translated into English by Allan H. Barr, author Yu Hua gives a trenchant description of big-character posters(大字报 dàzìbào) as he experienced them as a child:

At the outset of the Cultural Revolution “big-character posters” started to appear. Political screeds rendered in clumsily handwritten characters — and now and again some elegantly written ones, too — these were the first acts of the disenfranchised masses in challenging the power of officialdom. Written on broadsheets are big as decent-sized windows and posted on the walls that ran alongside city streets, shorter versions took the form of two sheets of paper mounted one on top of another, while longer ones involved five or six sheets set out in a horizontal row. In the years to follow, these big-character posters would become the largest exhibition of calligraphy China has ever seen: all across the country, in cities and towns, big streets and small, walls were decorated with them. People would gather in the streets and read the posters with undisguised relish, for although they all employed much the same revolutionary rhetoric, they began to criticize officials and their high and mighty ways. Continue reading →

I’m one of the organizers for the Xu Zhimo event in New York tomorrow. The reason that we are conducting the event in Chinese is that the event is not in the form of a symposium, but rather readings of Xu’s poems and music tributes. We do have some speeches and readings in English such as the remarks by Dr. Tony Hsu, Xu Zhimo’s grandson and a UN interpreter (on a poem he translated into English). See the event program at:

Xi Chuan and other Chinese and American poets are at the University of Oklahoma for the US-China Poetry Dialog, organized by Jonathan Stalling.

The first public events will be on the 24th at 10:30 a.m. in OU’s Bizzell Memorial Library and 7 p.m. at Fred Jones Museum of Art. There will also be a reading on the 25th in Eureka Springs, AR, at 7 p.m. at the Writers Colony at Dairy Hollow, and on the 26th in Bentonville, AR at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art at 6 p.m. Continue reading →

What role is there for storytelling and roleplay in teaching about Chinatowns and Chinese diasporas?

The “Harvard on China” podcast talks to Eileen Chengyin Chow, Professor in Duke University’s Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies and Co-Director of Duke’s Story Lab, director of the Shewo Institute of Chinese Journalism at Shih Hsin University, and Harvard alum. She is the author of the forthcoming “Chinatown States of Mind,” as well as the co-translator with Carlos Rojas of Yu Hua’s two-volume novel “Brothers” and the co-editor of the “Oxford Handbook of Chinese Cinemas.”

The “Harvard on China” podcast is hosted by James Evans at Harvard’s Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies.

You can subscribe to the “Harvard on China” podcast on iTunes, or listen on Soundcloud, Stitcher, and other podcast apps.

On February 27, 2016, longstanding boundary 2 board member Arif Dirlik gave his final lecture at the University of British Columbia. The talk, The Rise of China and the End of the World As We Know It, is available in full on the UBC Library’s website.

The Role of Intellectuals in China’s History, an Interview with Wang Hui

Harvard’s Peter Bol and Yu Wen interview visiting professor Wang Hui to discuss the changing role of intellectuals in China’s history. By tracing discourse on Chinese intellectuals back to Neo-Confucian debates in the Song Dynasty, Wang Hui examines intellectual history over the longue durée, as discussed in his four-volume work,The Rise of Modern Chinese Thought《現代中國思想的興起》(2004–2009).

Watch the full interview on the Fairbank Center’s YouTube page:

Peter Bol is Vice Provost for Advances in Learning and the Charles H. Carswell Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University.

Wang Hui is a Visiting Professor in East Asian Languages and Civilizations at the Harvard-Yenching Institue, and Professor of literature and history at Tsinghua University.

Yu Wen is a Ph.D. student in history at Harvard University.

This interview was produced by ChinaX and the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University.

Please join us for the final meeting of the academic year for the Chinese Studies Research Group (San Francisco Bay Area).

This group is designed to create a sense of community among Chinese Studies scholars in the San Francisco Bay Area. Our meetings are an opportunity to hear and discuss interesting research in progress (typically from one faculty member and one doctoral candidate) and to network with people with similar interests.

Date: Saturday, April 22, 2017
Time: 10:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Location: University of San Francisco, Malloy Hall (MH 405) – Telepresence Conference Room (Please note that this is a new meeting location on campus for the group)

Presentations:

Ethnic Branding and the Politics of (In)Visibility in Late-Socialist Southwest China
Yu Luo, Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for Chinese Studies, University of California Berkeley

Beginning in 1966, China’s Great Proletariat Cultural Revolution was a mass movement that shook the foundations of Modern China to its core. The movement’s ubiquitous presence disrupted all aspects of Chinese society, and has had a lasting impact on Chinese culture that continues until today. Continue reading →

Please join us for the 2nd meeting of the academic year for the Chinese Studies Research Group (San Francisco Bay Area).

This group is designed to create a sense of community among Chinese Studies scholars in the San Francisco Bay Area. Our meetings are an opportunity to hear and discuss interesting research in progress (typically from one faculty member and one doctoral candidate) and to network with people with similar interests.

Following our sell-out speed-book clubbing event in March, Read Paper Republic is delighted to be partnering with Free Word for a follow-up event with a fantastical flavour:

A police officer investigating a brutal murder interrogates his chief suspect, but the details of the crime itself are constantly shifting. A woman hopes a knight in shining armour will offer her an escape from the road she seems destined to pace forever. A dispute between two witnesses to a killing results in a fatal duel. A teenage gamer must find a way to deal with the concrete-hungry dragons that are somehow taking over his town.Continue reading →

Please join us for the first meeting of the academic year for the Chinese Studies Research Group (San Francisco Bay Area).

This group is designed to create a sense of community among Chinese Studies scholars in the San Francisco Bay Area. Our meetings are an opportunity to hear and discuss interesting research in progress from one faculty member and one doctoral candidate and to network with people with similar interests.

“Chinese Masculinity Ideals in a Globalized World”Keynote Lecture by Prof. Kam Louie
at the University of San Francisco Center for Asia Pacific Studies
Thursday, Nov. 3, 2016, 4:30 p.m.
University of San Francisco, McLaren 252
Free and Open to the Public

This is a bit outside the “China” focus of our list, but it’s a special event that we would like to advertise as broadly as possible. If you are in the neighborhood, please try to attend.–Kirk

Voice of Burmese Poetry: ko ko thett

The Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures and the East Asian Studies Center at The Ohio State University present a public talk and performance by ko ko thett, internationally known Burmese poet, on Monday, October 17 from 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. in Postle Hall, Room 1184 (305 W. 12th Ave., Columbus, Ohio).

ko ko thett, author of The Burden of Being Burmese and co-editor of Bones Will Crow, the first volume of contemporary Burmese poetry in English translation, will introduce currents in Burmese poetry and perform poetry in Burmese and English. The reading will include an overview of poetry in Myanmar today. Introduction by Professor Mark Bender, Chair, DEALL.

This event is free and open to the public. For additional information, visit the EASC website.

Jimi 幾米 (Jimmy Liao), the well-known Taiwanese illustrator and author of books for children and young adults, will be in San Francisco for a series of events in late October. Organized by the Chinese Program at San Francisco State University (SFSU) in co-operation with the Center for Asia Pacific Studies at the University of San Francisco (USF) and a number of other partners, the event series features a public multi-media reading and book signing at SFSU on Saturday, October 22, and a screening of Starry Starry Night (星空) and Q&A with Jimi at USF on Thursday, October 20. Both events are free and open to the public, but registration via Eventbrite is required as seats are limited.

To sign up for the Saturday event A DREAMY AFTERNOON: JIMI AT SF STATE 夢幻午後：幾米在州大, click here:

Post navigation

Archived Posts

Social Media Links

If you have trouble accessing this page and need to request an alternate format, contact u@osu.edu

The content of this site is published by the site owner(s) and is not a statement of advice, opinion, or information pertaining to The Ohio State University. Neither text, nor links to other websites, is reviewed or endorsed by The Ohio State University.